PHOENIX (AP) — Residents began cleaning up Wednesday from devastating flooding that slammed Arizona a day earlier, trapping people in vehicles and homes and destroying up to $2 million worth of inventory at a cactus nursery north of Phoenix.

The National Weather Service said some areas received more rain Tuesday than they had all last summer, and many residents were faced with a long recovery.

At Cox Cactus Farm, workers gathered and discarded flooded plants while tractors scooped up dirt at the nursery that caters to landscapers, resorts and golf courses.

Co-owner Jessica Cox said the farm lost between $1.5 million and $2 million worth of inventory and estimated it will take two years to fully recover from the storm. The owners basically have to rebuild and regrow their inventory from scratch, she said.

The floodwaters rose so quickly Tuesday morning that Cox's husband had to climb on the roof of a greenhouse to escape. A worker retrieved him with a tractor.

Farther north, nearly 5 inches of rain fell around New River, the site of some of Tuesday's most chaotic scenes.

New River resident Wayne Adams set out on foot at 6 a.m. with his dog in search of his utility trailer.

"It just disappeared," said Adams, who uses the trailer to haul lumber and trash. "We went home, and now we're back out again. I still hope we find it."

Elsewhere in metro Phoenix and Tucson, a small trailer park was evacuated, a school was flooded, and first responders pulled motorists from partially submerged vehicles. There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries.

Some animals also were displaced by the flooding.

The Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center in Scottsdale is caring for a rescued fawn and baby skunk.

Jessica Cox, co-owner of Cox Cactus Farm, covers her face with her hands as she surveys the damage l …

Neighbors in the west Phoenix suburb of Surprise spotted the skunk floating down a street Tuesday night. Center spokeswoman Kim Carr said the animal, now named Monsoon, will remain there for several months.

The fawn will stay there permanently because of state wildlife rules prohibiting the release of deer back into the wild.

Flooding also brought snakes out of the woodwork with reports of reptiles spotted in trees.

Russ Johnson, president of the Phoenix Herpetological Society, said snakes typically live in the washes that get flooded. The reptiles have the same reaction as mammals around rushing water — head for higher ground.

"If they can't find anything right away ... they'll go up anything they can, whether it be on top of a tree or a bush," Johnson said. He advised that anyone who sees a snake, venomous or not, should avoid handling it.

Jessica Cox, co-owner of Cox Cactus Farm, tries to save a damaged plant in the mess of mud-covered p …

"With so much rain falling so quickly, the water doesn't have a chance to soak into the hard-packed, rocky soil," said meteorologist Gary Woodall of the National Weather Service.

Arizona's monsoon season runs roughly from June to September, when powerful storms form with heavy rain and whipping winds. The phenomenon occurs each summer when the winds shift, bringing moisture north from the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico to produce radical and unpredictable weather changes.

Sporadic storms were expected to continue across the Phoenix area for the next few days, according to the weather service.